Abstract

Objectives: To assess the environmental knowledge of college nutrition students in regards to: Global Warming, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Sustainable Food Systems, and United States (U.S.) Organic Standards. Methods: 72 college nutrition students, juniors and seniors completed a self-administered survey of demographics and environmental knowledge at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Mann-Whitney U Test and Fisher's Exact Test were used and significance was determined by a p< 0.05. Results: The overall environmental knowledge among college nutrition students was low. Overall knowledge comparing juniors at the beginning of the school year to seniors at the end of the school year was statistically significantly higher (p < 0.005). When comparing Juniors-Beginning to Seniors-Ending, there was statistically significant increase in environmental knowledge in the GMOs (p< 0.027), Sustainable Food Systems (p< 0.027), and Organic Standards (p< 0.031) sections. Conclusions: Environmental knowledge among college nutrition students was low. Based on our findings, more emphasis should be placed on promoting environmental knowledge in college curriculums.

Introduction

Most environmental experts agree that Planet Earth has a finite number of resources to sustain its inhabitants. 1,2 When irresponsible stewardship of the planet occurs, not only does the environment suffer but the people's health is also affected. 3,4,5,6 The areas of Global warming, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Sustainable Food Systems, and United States (U.S.) Organic Standards impact the health of the planet and its inhabitants. 1, 6,7,8,9 Effective nutritionists can educate people not only on nutrition, but can also demonstrate to them how to live a more Earth-friendly lifestyle through their food choices; thus becoming responsible stewards of their home, Earth. 1,2, 10,11,12,13 Surveys have been conducted that analyze students' awareness towards environmentalism but did not necessarily address the interconnection between nutrition and environment, resulting in gaps in this type of research. 14,15,16,17,18 Because genetically modified (GM) foods have recently become abundant in our food supply, surveys assessing people's perceptions/knowledge of GM foods have taken place. 19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26 However, none of these surveys specifically addressed college nutrition students' perceptions or knowledge of GM foods. The main objective of this study is to assess the environmental knowledge of college nutrition students in regards to: global warming, GMOs, sustainable food systems, and U.S. organic standards. The specific objectives are: 1) assess overall combined (juniors and seniors) environmental knowledge, 2) compare Beginning (Fall 2003) mean percentages correct responses to Ending (Spring 2004) percentages for junior and senior nutrition students, and 3) compare Beginning (Fall 2003) mean percentages correct responses of junior nutrition students to Ending (Spring 2004) percentages of senior nutrition students.

methods

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Analysis of Environmental Knowledge Questionnaire (EKQ):

The EKQ was coded and analyzed by the investigator. For each question that a participant answered correctly, a numerical value of one (1) was assigned. For each question that the participant answered incorrectly, a numerical value of zero (0) was assigned. No value was assigned to each question that a participant answered Don't Know. Thus, if a participant answered all questions correctly, the total score would be sixteen (16).

Results

Environmental Knowledge Questionnaire (EKQ)

The EKQ mean percentage of correct responses for juniors and seniors was 48, indicating low environmental knowledge. There was statistically significantly higher (p ? 0.005) environmental knowledge when comparing the overall knowledge between Juniors-Beginning (Fall, 2003) to Seniors-Ending (Spring, 2004) (Table 1).

Table 1: Mean Percentage (%) of Correct Answers of Environmental Knowledge

When comparing Juniors-Beginning to Seniors-Ending, there was statistically significant improvement in knowledge in the following sections: GMOs (p < 0.027), Sustainable Food Systems (p < 0.027), and Organic Standards (p < 0.031). There was no statistically significant improvement in knowledge in regards to the Global Warming section (Table 2). Although it was not statistically significant, the subjects' knowledge in the GMOs section increased from 36 mean percentage correct at the Juniors-Beginning level to 51 mean percentage correct at the Seniors-Ending level. Regarding the Sustainable Food Systems section, the subjects' knowledge increased from 51 mean percentage correct to 78 mean percentage correct. Regarding the Organic Standards section, the subjects' knowledge increased from 40 mean percentage correct to 58 mean percentage correct (Table 2).

Table 2: Mean Percent Correct and Incorrect Responses of Environmental Questionnaire

There was no statistical significance in the knowledge of individual questions at both class levels, Juniors-Beginning to Juniors-Ending and Seniors-Beginning to Seniors-Ending (Table 3).

Table 3: Environmental Knowledge of College students.

Discussion

This study measures and compares the environmental knowledge of junior and senior year college nutrition students in regards to: Global Warming, GMOs, Sustainable Food Systems, and U.S. Organic Standards. Overall, juniors and seniors had low environmental knowledge.

Global Warming: In the Global Warming section, both juniors and seniors demonstrated the lowest knowledge (< 37 mean percentage correct) at the beginning and at the end of the school year. The results of our study confirmed the findings from other research. Talay et al., (2004) surveyed 651 Ankara University students in the final year of various degree programs and found that students in the health sciences were significantly unaware of issues such as those of sustainable development, organic farming and solid waste pollution. 18 Other studies found similar results. 23,31 In a survey conducted by Khalid (2003), senior undergraduate science teacher majors had misconceptions about the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion and 56% of students incorrectly perceived that “holes in the stratospheric ozone will increase the greenhouse effect” (Khalid, 2003, p. 39). 31In our study, 94 percent of both juniors and seniors incorrectly agreed that “depletion of the ozone layer is a major cause of global warming.” In a 2001 survey conducted by the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation (NEETF) and RoperASW, out of 1,503 randomly selected Americans, only 36 percent knew that most of our electricity is generated by burning oil, coal and wood. 26In our study, 72 percent of the juniors and 61 percent of the seniors incorrectly responded that “most of the electricity in the United States is generated by hydroelectric power.”

Genetically Modified Organisms: Our results indicated a low knowledge of GMOs at the end of the school year. Other studies assessing college students' GMOs knowledge have found similar results. Sohan et al. (2002) found college students in general, to have low knowledge of biotechnology. 25Wingenbach et al. (2002) surveyed 330 U.S. college students pursuing various science degrees regarding their knowledge and perceptions of biotechnology issues as reported in the mass media 23. Students achieved 30 percent correct responses, “thus illustrating lack of knowledge” (Wingenbach et al., 2002, p. 7). 23Weisenfeld et al. (2003) surveyed 270 German college students and found that students did not rate their knowledge on science and genetic engineering as being good and they were insecure regarding the presence of genetically engineered products in the market. 24

Sustainable Food Systems: In our study, students in this section had the highest mean percentage correct at the end of the school year. Various studies have been done on specific aspects of sustainability that both concurred and not concurred with our findings. One study done by Borsari, Vidrine, and Doherty, (2002) did not concur with the findings of our study. 32 They assessed 160 senior college students' preparedness towards sustainability in U.S. and European undergraduate agricultural programs. Comparing U.S. students to European students in regard to the accurate concept for the term ‘local food system,’ U.S. students had low-frequency scores (75 percent of the frequency were below the mean), whereas 75 percent of the European students had frequency values above the mean. 32One reason students in our study may have done well in this section is the environment at WSU. For example, a non-profit organization, Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources has been established at WSU that promotes sustainability which may have an impact on WSU nutrition students' awareness on this subject. In another study, Wilkins, Bowdish, and Sobal (2002) examined the use of the terms “seasonal” and “local” among college students in two different classes, a nutrition class and an economics class. 33 They found that nutrition students were more familiar with the terms “seasonal” and “local” than the economics students. 33These findings concur with our results. In a study by Davis, Edmister, Sullivan, and West (2003) the concept of sustainability was assessed among some college students. They found that the college students were aware of the ecological component of sustainability but were not aware of its economic and social components. 34

Organic Standards: Our results indicated that juniors had low knowledge of Organic Standards at both the beginning and at the end of the school year. Seniors demonstrated good knowledge at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year. There are few studies in the literature concerning the subject of U.S. Organic Standards. The USDA Organic Standards have just been recently finalized (December, 2000). 35 In a study by Sandalidou and Baourakis (2002), customer satisfaction was assessed among 131 Grecian organic olive consumers. 36 They found that out of five attributes, health, price/quality, packaging, specific olive oil characteristics, and promotion; the consumers considered health as the most important attribute. To Sandalidou and Baourakis, this showed “how sensitive customers are in terms of nutrition” (p. 398). 36

This study population was formed from a modest sample of college students. Although Juniors-Ending and Seniors-Beginning are two separate groups, there was an increase in overall environmental knowledge when comparing Juniors-Ending to Seniors-Beginning. It was beyond the scope of this study to investigate the reasons for this increase in knowledge. The results of our study may not be generalized to all college students or to another population and may require confirmation among a population of randomly selected young adults outside a university setting.

Conclusions And Implications For Research And Practice

In the present study, the combined junior and senior college nutrition students' overall environmental knowledge was low. Although overall environmental knowledge was low, there was a statistically significant increase in overall environmental knowledge when comparing juniors at the beginning of the school year with that of seniors at the end of the school year. Nutritionists have the responsibilities of educating the public on how their food choices can benefit not only their health but the health of planet. Based on our findings and other given research, more specific assessment of college nutrition students' environmental knowledge is needed and more emphasis should be placed on promoting environmental literacy in college curriculums.

Correspondence to

SAMER KOUTOUBI, MD., PhD Associate Professor School of Nutrition and Exercise Science Bastyr University 14500 Juanita Drive, NE Kenmore, WA 98028 Tel. 425-602-3280 Fax. 425-823-6222 Email: skoutoub@bastyr.edu

References